Zoya - Skylar

Hi everyone! First things first: IT'S SUMMER. I'm very excited obviously. Still waiting to see how my class grades end up, but for now I'm just enjoying my freedom. Hopefully with all this free time I'll be able to post more frequently.

Zoya Skylar is a nice subdued blue that reminds me of faded denim. It's deep but still soft and gentle and is flecked with an interesting sort of shimmer that isn't really in the polish but more on top of it.. honestly, it reminds me of hard water spotting, haha. It's pretty though. The formula was pretty good, only two coats, but you can see that I had some tiny thin patches on my index finger. I'm not going to complain though.

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Nicole by OPI - Too Rich For You

Hello there! Quick post. I get crabby sometimes when polishes don't live up to my expectations. This is a good example. I was tired and wanted to put something on quickly that wasn't a matte. I looked at this and thought 'Oh, it's dark, it should cover nicely'. WRONG. 4 coats for this. Four. That's two too many for me when I'm feeling lazy! It's a nice color, but not 4 coats nice. The formula was smooth, at least. My camera isn't getting the slight green in this so I'll refer you to Paillette's post to get a good view of this polish.

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Essie - Turquoise & Caicos

Hi everyone! Back with another post. I recently did some more purging & reorganizing of my collection and while I was moving my Essies, I decided to give this a shot. T&C is, well.. turquoise! It's got a strong green hint to it but still has that nice greenish-blue mix to it. The color is great but the formula is lacking. Opacity took 4 coats for me and I can still see a little bit of my nails. I know that with long nails, I'll generally need an extra coat or two sometimes to fully cover VNL but 4 coats.. not a fan. Especially not since this reminds me a lot of China Glaze For Audrey which, if memory serves me right, will give me a pretty similar color in 2 or 3 coats. T&C also ended up with a few sheet marks and bubbles, which I'm not a fan of. Overall, I'd say it's not bad but not unique enough to merit putting up with the problems I encountered. I've always been on the fence about Essie because the formula can definitely be hit or miss and this was, unfortunately, a miss.

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Sally Hansen - The Real Teal

Hello everyone! I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it, or a happy Thursday if you don't. Today's polish isn't very seasonal but it's a fun one. The Real Teal is just what it says, teal! It does lean a little turquoise but it's close enough. My favorite part of it is the cool green shimmer that runs through it and lights it up. I don't own very many Sally Hansens simply because the color selection isn't that exciting but there are some neat ones like this. The Xtreme Wear formula is a great one, requiring only 2 coats and having no problems at all. This is a nice, fresh, fun way to bring a little bit of summer to your nails as it gets colder outside. :)

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Nicole by OPI - Midnight Snowfall

Hello there! Today's polish is a bit of a chameleon. Midnight Snowfall came out in Nicole by OPI's holiday collection last year, along with Fell From The Tree and a lot of other great colors. However, it's a bit hard to pin down! You can see under this bright light, it looks definitely blue. However, in other lighting it looks like a rich, slightly dusty purple. This is a blurple polish if I ever saw one. Kinda cool. The only downside is some formula problems. You can see a few patchy bits here and there and I got a load of tipwear on this after only 2 or 3 days. I used 3 coats. Thanks to TA from Color Me Cagey in the comments on  my last post for suggesting dark colors on nubbins, this looks much better than light yellow!

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Sally Hansen - Model Behavior

Hi there! Today's polish is a super fun, cheery color. Model Behavior is a polish that came out in the Spring with the Prabal Gurung limited edition collection. I don't own a lot of these Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polishes simply because the core colors aren't terribly exciting. The limited edition collections tend to have much better colors. This is a deep sky blue that looks so fun and bright on the nails. If I were any good at nail art I'd definitely paint some puffy white clouds and a big bright sun on here. It's a simple color, since it's a creme, but it's still pretty unique to me and definitely worth having. The formula is fairly even but slightly thin, I needed 3 coats to get full coverage.

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Nicole by OPI - No Limits (Matte)

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long absence. It's been a hectic week and I haven't had a lot of time for my nails. Matte polishes like this are great for when you need to put something on in a hurry, so this is a great fit for me! Nicole by OPI came out with matte versions of some of their existing colors last year, I picked these up at Walmart. They were one of many companies jumping on the matte bandwagon. I don't know if you can still find these anywhere online, but it's worth a look. No Limits is a deep, inky navy blue full of silver shimmer. The shimmer in these mattes keeps them from looking completely flat and boring, a complaint I've heard from a lot of people about matte polish. The formula is intensely pigmented! If you're careful, you can have this completely opaque in one coat. I was slapping this on haphazardly in 5 minutes so I needed a second coat to cover up some bald spots I made. It dries lightning fast, another great thing about mattes. I was able to put this on and be working with my hands not even 5 minutes later. Mattes will eventually turn sort of satin-y as you wear them due to water and oil. I know some people use a matte topcoat to extend the life of the finish but I just let it be on its own. What do you think of matte polishes? I know they were all the rage last year and, like this year's crackle, they have their fans and detractors. I personally give them a thumbs up.

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China Glaze - Towel Boy Toy

Hi everyone! Today's update is a great summery color. Towel Boy Toy is a bright aqua-ish neon with pretty blue shimmer. Looking at this polish makes me think it would taste like blue raspberry. It's a really pretty color but I was sort of dismayed when the first coat went on streaky and thin and dried matte. Why? It clued me in to it being a neon! Neons are notorious for being thin, streaky, and drying to a matte finish. This was definitely thin, requiring 4 coats to get what you see here, and somewhat streaky, and it did dry to a semi-matte finish. However, it wasn't terrible, just unexpected! Overall this is a good polish, it definitely feels bright, summery, and fresh. Please note that this is slightly greener in real life, my camera didn't quite pick that up.

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Essie - Smooth Sailing

Hello everyone! Sorry for the late update, there hasn't been much sun here the past few days so I couldn't take any photos. Florida went from the Sunshine State to the Torrential Downpour State this week. I finally got some sun while I was out running errands so here you go. This photo unfortunately doesn't show off the veeeery subtle pink and blue shimmer in Smooth Sailing but it does show the pretty, almost speckled finish it has. It kind of reminds me of light wash denim. This was a real joy to put on, it covered evenly and fully in 2 coats.

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I have a question about my photos for you all. I see other bloggers taking their photos while holding the polish bottle in their hand to show you the bottle color and color on the nail simultaneously. What do you think of that? Would it benefit you if I took my photos in that manner? Please let me know!

China Glaze - Sea Spray

This is the last of the China Glaze Anchors Away colors I have to cover for you. Previous entries include Life Preserver and First Mate. Sea Spray is a beautiful greyed blue with very subtle silver shimmer running through it. It makes me think of cold northern seas and rocky beaches, kind of melancholy but beautiful. It went on nicely in two coats. Even though it looks fairly simple, I really haven't stopped looking at my nails all day. It's low-key and still eye-catching.

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Essie - Midnight Cami

I wanted to like this, I did! Midnight Cami is the blue cousin to Sexy Divide, both almost black. However, Sexy Divide did a better job at not hiding its true color. Midnight Cami looks nice in the sun but the rest of the time I may as well be wearing black polish. This is a no go for someone like me who spends a lot of time indoors and in dim light. It is wonderfully pigmented though, needing only 2 coats if I recall correctly. Best of all it didn't stain my skin one bit when I took it off!

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Orly - Royal Navy

Whew! Feels like it's been so long since you've actually seen my nails. Sorry about that. I've had a very hectic week full of moving and summer transition stuff but I'm finally settled and back into my groove! Orly's Royal Navy is a very neat deep blue with teal shimmer that can be slightly sheer. In this picture it's two coats over one coat of China Glaze's Frostbite, an amazing bright BRIGHT blue. I apologize that this is slightly blurry.

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Essie - Borrowed & Blue

This color makes me so very happy! Part of Essie's new bridal collection, Borrowed & Blue is the perfect pastel blue for me. I really wanted to love Hard Candy's Sky but it was a streaky, terrible mess. B&B has its own problems but with a careful hand and two coats, you get great results. This is a perfect color for spring and would be a great base for some spring or summer related nail art.

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Glitter glitter glitter!

I LOVE glitter polishes. I really do. But they're such a pain to remove that I only rarely wear them on my fingers. My solution is to use glitter polishes for my pedicures instead! Since glitter wears like iron, it means I hardly ever have to do my toes. So since I didn't hear any objection to posting pedi pics, here's my current toes. This was done with the Color Club Glitter Vixen collection. Colors are as follows: Tru Passion (purple), Sexy Siren (blue),  Object of Envy (green), Art of Seduction (red), and Sex Symbol (silver). Application on these was pretty good, they're clear bases that are jammed with glitter so it only took me 2-3 coats to get what you see here. Click to enlarge.

China Glaze First Mate

Here's my first swatch! I know everyone's seen swatches of China Glaze's Anchors Away collection online already, but I just wanted to show it off. I ended up getting 3 polishes from the collection: First Mate, Ahoy!, and Sea Spray. Ahoy! is so pretty I may just get a backup, and First Mate is just plain gorgeous. I was thinking of doing some striping or a French on it today but I decided it looked too pretty alone to mess with.

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